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Return to normalcy

All along Main Street, voters are just glad a frustrating campaign is over

Request to buy this photoCourtney Hergesheimer | DISPATCHLev Kucherski, owner of Lev's Pawn Shop Downtown, is glad the campaign — and the ads that go with it — is over. “Too much negative,” he said.

Request to buy this photoCourtney Hergesheimer | DISPATCH photosDenise Benning, owner of Our Style on Main Street, had this takeaway from the election: “What I’ve learned is there are a lot of foolish people running things and they’re all wanting to get back in office in the worst way.”

Presidential campaigns are always tailored to Main Street voters. On the sixth of every month until the election on Nov. 6, 2012, The Dispatch will take the pulse of the campaign on Main Streets across Ohio.

Because, beginning Wednesday, everyday life in Ohio might return to normal. Detergent commercials will be back on TV, replacing 30-second attack ads. Mail will be reduced to the monthly bills and not a half-dozen campaign fliers portraying one candidate or another as rotten. The politicians will be at home, either basking in victory or licking their wounds.

And Main Street? After an interminable presidential campaign, it has been rendered frustrated and depressed, hoping it doesn’t have to endure another one like this four years hence and praying that Americans made the right choices.

After 11 months of interviewing voters on main streets in bellwether counties across Ohio, The Dispatch returned to the one where it started a year ago today — U.S. 40, appropriately called the “national highway,” but better known as Main Street on the stretch that goes from the Democratic inner city of Columbus east to the more-Republican reaches of Reynoldsburg.

Interviews along the street revealed that minds mostly had been made up; there was no reason to further adjudicate the cases for President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. The long campaign had achieved a crucial purpose: It had informed voters about the candidates and their positions.

But it also had left voters weary and jaded, craving a new way. Up and down Main Street, voters complained that there is far too much money in campaigns, too much negativity, and a sense that the whole exercise really wasn’t about them. Rather, it was about which political party would be in control or which special interest would be served.

Lev Kucherski, owner of Lev’s Pawn Shop Downtown on Main Street, was the first voter among more than 100 interviewed for this monthly series, and, 12 months later, he said he’s happy the campaign has drawn to an end.

“Too much negative,” Kucherski, a 1974 Russian immigrant, said with a still-thick accent. “I no like that bad stuff — he’s no good or the other guy’s no good. They should just say what they’re going to do.”

In a Downtown Main Street store with three of her five children, Adora Gallagher, 36, of Westerville, said the campaign made her well-informed but suspicious that the candidates sometimes don’t believe what they say.

“You shouldn’t just tell people what they want to hear,” Gallagher said. “In general, too many politicians do that. They tell you what you want to hear until they get to where they want to be, and then they do what they were going to do anyway.”

At her clothing store, Our Style, between Downtown and Bexley, owner Denise Benning, 53, said members of Congress shouldn’t get paid until they pass a budget and work together on the nation’s problems.

“This campaign-finance thing is crazy,” Benning said. “Imagine all the people we could be feeding and helping with all the money that’s gone into ads.”

Asked what she’s learned from the campaign, Benning said, “What I’ve learned is there are a lot of foolish people running things and they’re all wanting to get back in office in the worst way.”

As she pulled a cart of books out of the Bexley library, Margaret Martin, 92, said campaign spending is out of control.

“What I would like to see is maybe a cap on spending on campaigning,” Martin said. “I think of the millions of dollars that could be spent in a much better way.”

Across Main Street, at the Cup O Joe coffee shop, Terry Lewis, 48, and Carolyn Kilbride, 38, who generally see eye to eye politically, also agreed on the need for changes.

“I don’t like smear campaigns,” Lewis said. “Don’t tell me how bad the other candidate is; tell me what you’re going to do for me. That’s what’s going to sway my vote. ... What I’d like to see changed about politics is I’d like to see politicians actually work for the people.”

Kilbride echoed that sentiment: “I would like to see leadership. Politicians have a job to do in representing their constituents and should be standing up for them. But the politicians have moved in the direction of standing up for lobbying groups and getting them money.”

At the International Parts Store on Main Street near Whitehall, manager Dan Holdren, 42, said he’d like “to see more honesty” from politicians.

“I just wonder whether they do really care about small businesses,” Holdren said. “Our business has gotten worse. I wanted to retire here, but I’m not even sure we’ll be here in five years.”

As she sat behind the counter at Adorable Dogs, a pet-grooming shop in Reynoldsburg, Michele Nieves, 43, admitted that she was among the rarest of Ohio voters — undecided. She had seen the ads, gotten the mail, heard the pitches, and had been rendered anything but excited about the election.

“I wouldn’t use that word,” Nieves said. “I try to weigh everything on both sides. I listened to the debates — some of it I know is bull. There should be a neutral place to go for the facts. The he-said, she-said is confusing. I don’t know what to believe.”